A Tragedy Recalled !!!
The Six Mile Murder – by Clara Patton
Crimes against women of any kind were very rare on the Goldfields of Western Australia. The prospecting community respected and valued women and welcomed their presence. It was therefor, a terrible shock to the community when it was made known that in May 1897 a woman by the name of May Jane Wain had been shot by two men named Jim Conley and Robert Reid after a drinking bout in Coolgardie.
My first meeting with May was when I was visiting my mother Mrs Tom Farren in Niagara. She was employed at the hotel as a housemaid and also assisted in the bar. She was a kindly natured woman with a heart of gold. She could sing a good song and was always in demand at a ball or party.
One day she surprised us all by saying she would like to get into a place of her own and she had saved a few pounds in the hope of doing so. We all thought it was a good idea as in those days it was not uncommon to see a woman with a horse and cart set up a hotel on their own.
A send off was arranged for the night of her departure and Mr John Kennedy on behalf of all her friends presented her with a very nice handbag which enclosed a cheque.
I met her next when travelling back to Goongarri a few weeks before the terrible tragedy occurred. She was quite settled in her little shack at the 6 Mile amongst the Mulga with Mount Burgess in the background. There was never a weary prospector refused a meal or a drink of water.
My sister Mary Farran had driven down to pick up her children from the train at Southern Cross. Clara, Dolly, Beatrice and Bertha were coming home from boarding school at the Convent of Mercy in Perth for the holidays. The journey to Southern Cross took a week there and another week then to Niagara. On her way out of Coolgardie she stopped off to have tea with her friend May Wain.
After tea she again set off but soon pulled over and, as was the usual practice, Mary put her little girls to bed under the buggy in the bush. Mary was woken to the sound of horses and drunken shooting in the distance. Quickly Mary gathered the children and hid them in the scrub. She hoped her friend would take care.
May’s silhouette by the light of the lamp was clearly visible through the hessian walls of the shack. Two men, Reid and Connely, had a gun and began shooting wildly in their drunken state. Accidentally or intentionally a bullet tore through the hessian and struck May killing her instantly. These men, mad from the effects of drink, then went on to shoot two camels.
They were later arrested by Sergeant Mckenna who found them easily as they were boasting of their deeds. According to their clever defence lawyer, Dickie Haynes, they had shot a nearby camel nearly missing an afghan and then accidentally hit May. The verdict of accidental shooting was brought in. There was much public outcry about the very lenient verdict.
Coolgardie Miner (WA : 1894 – 1911), Monday 10 May 1897, page 3
THE SIX-MILE MURDER. – CONLEY WELL KNOWN IN MENZIES – A STRANGE CAREER.
In the news of the murder at the Six-Mile, near Coolgardie, which has been published during the past two days, the name of James Conley has been brought prominently before the public. His many friends at Menzies and Niagara will scarcely credit that he is under arrest on a charge of murder, although those who knew him intimately have lately noticed a change in his mental condition which might account for any extraordinary act. Conley is a native of America, but many years ago, he left the land of his birth for South Africa, whose alluring gold prospects had an irresistible fascination for him. Fortune, however, did not deal kindly with him there, and the attractions of the dark continent weakening he set sail for Australia, and arrived at Sydney in 1891.
He soon found himself “way back,” prospecting at Mt. Browne, and when that gave out he was engaged with a Government boring party in putting down a bore on the Urisino station, a property owned by the late Sir Samuel Wilson. Later on he worked in different capacities on the Paroo, where he sojourned for a year or so until the gold fever beset him again, and he headed for West Australia.
Coolgardie Miner 5 May 1897,
With his old pioneering instinct he was soon on the furthest outskirts of settlement, and prospected the country beyond Niagara. Then he took contracts on mines, and was engaged for a considerable period on the Mignonette at Blevin’s. Taking a trip to Coolgardie about 12 months ago, he became embroiled in a street row, and received a blow on the head with a horseshoe, which inflicted a dangerous and serious wound, from which he recovered slowly. That hurt seems to have changed the whole trend of his character, and from being a quiet inoffensive man he became a daring hair-brained fellow, to whom in his cups no madness was impossible. He returned to Niagara, and an intimacy which had sprung up between him and Mediicott, the driver of the Mount Margaret mail, became a very close friendship. The result of the injury, however, was soon manifested, and one morning as he lay in bed in the same room as Mediicott, at Farran’s Hotel, at the Four-mile, near Niagara, he took up his revolver and amused himself by firing at different objects in the room, and it was with difficulty that he was forced to desist.
Firearms seemed to have a weird fascination for him, and he was never happy unless he was shooting at something. Last Easter when on his way to Coolgardie- he stayed at the Carbine Hotel, and when he was retiring took a revolver from his hip pocket and placed it under his pillow; Mr Smith, who was in the room at the time, said, Is that loaded? ” Rather” replied Conley, ” I’ll drop anybody who interferes with me again.” His friendship with Mediicott was so strong that when he heard of the latter’s arrest in connection with the Mount Margaret mail robbery he hastened to Niagara, and offering Mediicott a superb dapple-grey horse which he possessed, said, ” Take it, Charley, and get away as fast as you can.” Mediicott was overcome by the generosity of the action, but would not accept the offer, and the horse remained in Conley’s possession right up to the time of his arrest. One of the greatest characteristics of the man was his love of gaming for high stakes.
At Coolgardie he would stand at one of the automatic poker hand machines and. bet £50 a time on the result of a turn of the machine. People who knew Conley at Coolgardie state that he has sat down to play cards and lost £1,000 at a sitting.—” Menzies Herald.”
Memorial to May Wain Coolgardie Cemetery, Western Australia
The Niagara Hotel 1902 – Mrs & Mr M Farren – Clara Patton and her sister Dolly and Bully Bourke – Photo TROVE
Also available from Hesperian Press:- The Six Mile Murder
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I came across this story by accident. It is brilliant. I have copies of the trial that I found on Trove Newspapers. Mary was married to a Great Uncle of my late husband. She married Stephen Wain at his parents home in Rutherglen Victoria. We don’t know when or why she ended up in Coolgardie. When she died Stephen and her sister claimed her Estate. Stephen died in Beechworth Victoria in 1911. he is buried there in a grave with another man, we presume it was a paupers grave.